Five Touches That Sara Knew Were Inappropriate
by Louise24601
Summary: The title speaks for itself. One-shot, rated T for sexual allusions.


**_AUTHOR'S NOTE: I was feeling insomniac on a Saturday night and I was thinking I'd give drabbles a shot so there it is._**

Five touches that Sara knew were inappropriate.

 _With one of her father's associates, in their holiday residence in Michigan_

He was a senator or a congressman or something, Sara was seventeen years old, and her father had only just become Mayor. It was the end of summer, and the man had spent most of it at their house. At the time, Sara was not very interested in politics, and she couldn't remember just how many reunions had been thrown throughout August – and it had been a very hot, stuffy month.

The man was her father's superior, this much she did remember. He was around the same age, fifty something, and Sara hadn't paid a great deal of attention to him. Her father was bending in half most of the time to make sure he could please him, perhaps there were a few mentions of a deal being struck with said associate if things went well – Sara really hadn't been paying too much attention. At seventeen, she didn't care about much more than science and quietness. It was before the rush of med school and later on the rush of morphine, and Sara Tancredi wasn't yet addicted to any kind of thrill.

It happened at a dinner reception, in their summer house, while his father was throwing an umpteenth party. Of course, _this_ was not exactly partying in Sara's book, but she had gotten used to those soirées since she was little. Maybe it was the reason why, as a teenager still, she never felt older than a child when they happened. She couldn't have seen it coming. It would not be the last time that a man would take her by surprise.

The dress that she was wearing that day was red, and sometimes she thought that had been the only reason. The only little girl that dresses in red is Little Red Riding Hood, and we all know what the wolf thought of that.

She had sat down in the living room to get away from her father's realm of manners and politics, and he had arrived a while later to have a drink. She had given him a polite smile that used to look embarrassed before she managed to get it right, and he had sat down next to her with a kind of sigh, one that sounded very adult-to-adult rather than grownup-to-child.

"Sorry about the company, Sara. It's getting far too hot outside."

"I don't mind." And she didn't mind, really. She didn't know the man well but she was used to his presence. He had offered her a glass of Champagne and she had sipped it quietly.

"How are things at school?" He asked to make conversation.

"All right." Sara had never gotten any grade below an A minus, and at first it had been so that her father might pay attention – if she had really wanted to get his attention though, she should have done the reverse. "My dad is very proud." She lied for some reason, and it could have just been the Champagne rising to her brain.

"He should be. You're a nice kid, Sara." The man had smiled, and hooked a hand around her shoulder. He didn't put his arm around her but closed his hand around his catch, and the unnaturalness of it was the first thing that startled her – the next was the size of the man's hand. He had very, very large hands. He could graze her collarbone with his index.

Then the door of the living room had opened and more people had stepped inside, and the touch had gotten sucked in the hole of denial and oblivion where Sara stored everything that she pretended didn't exist.

 _With Michael Scofield, in Fox River Penitentiary_

It occurred a few days after the riot, while she was still relatively uncomfortable in his presence – aware that she should be grateful which she actually was, and troubled by her position of power over him when, not a week ago, he had saved her life.

She knew he could probably tell she was uncomfortable. They exchanged a slightly awkward eye-contact at the door and after a brief "Good morning" and "please sit down", Sara had a feeling maybe this was going to end well if not comfortably.

"How is your foot?" She asked while giving him his shot of insulin, so that she was looking at his arms and not his face. She wondered if he knew she was deflecting. He probably always did.

"All right." He answered, with that honey-drawl he owned and a perennially serious tone. She absently wondered what kind of things would draw Michael Scofield out of his own unyielding control. Perhaps that inner question was her first mistake of the day.

She could feel the vein pulsating in his arm, the throb steady but quick under her fingers. The plastic material of the gloves didn't quite stop her from sensing how warm he was; the plastic gloves were tight and uncomfortable around her fingers and it suddenly struck her as an inconvenience. Which of course, was unprofessional. Sara Tancredi had no reason to be touching an inmate barehanded, should the inmate be handsome and visibly heroic and stare at her with dazzling blue eyes.

She removed the syringe from his arm without looking at his face still. Seemingly focused on her task, she brought a damp piece of cotton against the minuscule drop of blood the needle had drawn and wiped it off. Then she was out of excuses and out of things to do to avoid meeting his eyes, and she put on a professional smile.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Michael."

He repeated the formality with irreproachable professionalism. Yet for some reason, she was convinced that he didn't buy hers.

 _With Paul Kellerman, in her apartment_

It had not occurred to her that it might be unprofessional right away. Of course, it had, in the denial-field of Sara's mind, but she had not shown a reaction or said anything, because Lance Andrews was just a nice guy from her AA group and he was supposed to have a boyfriend.

It's not that she had actually wanted to know. Whether he was a fake homosexual crack-addict or a coldblooded hit man, Sara would rather be one hundred percent unaware that Paul Kellerman might be sexually attracted to her.

It happened while she was doing the dishes, after he had brought dinner to her apartment. He joined her in the kitchen almost right away.

"Let me take care of that." He suggested.

"I'm fine. You cooked, it's probably fair that I do the washing up. It was delicious, by the way."

"You've seen nothing yet, Sara." He said politely, and – she should have noticed – probably a little bit too cocky. "Next time, I'll be sure to make you try my upside down pineapple cake. Best one in Chicago."

"I'll bet."

There would not actually be a next time, and Sara didn't exactly feel raw about it. From everything that she regretted, not tasting one of Paul Kellerman's homemade desserts did not make the list.

"Well. It's a date." Lance grabbed a cloth near her sink so as to participate, and his hand brushed hers when he busied himself drying the plate she had just washed. He took it from the edge of the counter just when she was adding another plate, and his fingers grazed the length of her pinky finger incidentally.

Maybe it was not so incidental. Most decidedly, Sara Tancredi would have never wanted to suspect it and let alone know. But it happened despite herself, right away, even as they both went back to their task and didn't say anything for a while. She had known.

 _With Lincoln Burrows, in a train station_

He hadn't meant it to be inappropriate. She was aware of that, because Lincoln Burrows loved his little brother and he probably cared about her as a consequence, in a protective way or whatnot, a kind of Alpha wolf defending his pack.

"We won't always need the guy, Sara." He said, eyes set ahead of himself, contemplating just as she was the sight of his little brother and the man who, just a few days ago, had made a fine attempt at killing her.

"I know that." She had sounded calm and audibly all right. She had wanted to sound all right, because Sara Tancredi had learned at a young age that what was going on underneath the surface didn't matter as long as people never went below that.

That sunny afternoon, a few minutes before their train left for Chicago, Sara had a feeling that Lincoln was a bit like that himself.

He didn't look at her while he spoke. He probably wasn't the kind to open up, and he wasn't doing it for his sake.

"I don't trust the guy either if you must know. Back in Fox River, when I had gotten leave to see my son, he tried to kill me, too." His green eyes were still set ahead but Sara drained surprise from her face, just in case. He turned around and looked at her without a smile or anything reassuring, but he sounded straightforward and honest. Irony hit her when she wondered if Lincoln Burrows wasn't the most honest man she had met. "I'm not saying that I get what you're going through." He pointed out. "But I can relate."

He put a hand on her knee to mark his words, and the contact didn't immediately feel out of place. Maybe it was just the fact that he hadn't had sex in three years, or that she hadn't had sex in three years. Maybe it was when two pairs of blue eyes set on them, and they tore apart like teenagers caught having sex.

There was a look of deep and habitual impassivity on Michael's face, and a slight smirk on Kellerman's. Her leg felt warm where Lincoln had touched her, and she didn't meet his eyes while they got on the train or during the whole ride. She did meet Michael's, once or twice, and wondered if this was something that they would ultimately need to talk about.

 _With Michael Scofield, on an airplane to Los Angeles_

The circumstances had been mitigating. Of course, one always told well-educated girls like Sara never to sleep on the first date, and there actually had never been a date at all here – but customs and overly careful rules had long stopped mattering to Sara Tancredi, and too much had happened between her and Michael for her to think that she needed to stay at distance.

He had believed that she was dead for almost a month. Perhaps that alone was the reason. What she had gone through in Panama was in a way worse than death, or so she had thought many times while she was suffering her abductors' torture, but now, sitting in Michael's arms on a private jet plane, with the rest of the team pretending they weren't having an awkward time and looking the other way, it occurred to her that it was better, infinitely better than to be dead.

Michael pressed a kiss at the top of her head and she tried to get closer to him, although they had gone just about as close as they could. They were on their way to Los Angeles, about to complete one final mission.

Maybe it was the thought that, if things went all right, in a few months at most, they would all be free.

Michael's hand was wrapped around Sara's waist, and a shiver of unwilling lust came over her when she felt his index slightly roll up her shirt. Michael's movements were concealed by her jacket and Lincoln and Sucre were not watching anyhow, and yet Sara started blushing almost right away, not exactly from shame.

Not at all from shame.

Going on this much time without renewing her sexual life was bound to turn her into a live-wire at some point, and yet Sara felt that it wasn't what it was about. Michael's fingers had not gone below or truly above her hipbone, and her breath was already caught in her throat. She didn't think she would breathe at all for the next minute, not even if she tried to reason with herself.

It might have been the recent trauma, the lack of sleep or plainly the lack of air, but it occurred to her that to make love with Michael Scofield before any first date would not be at all inappropriate, after what they had gone through. She thought that if there had been more than half an hour of flight left, they might have sneaked in the airplane bathroom and no one from the team would have made a comment about it.

During the time that she had known Michael Scofield, Sara's conception of what was right and what was wrong had been more than shaken up. She had been tortured by several Company agents and almost raped and killed in a riot, and if she had wanted to have sex with the man she loved in an airplane filled with ex-criminals, she would have done so.

Truly. The inappropriate had never felt more appropriate than now.


End file.
